


The Hanging Tree

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [21]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Gen, M/M, Suicide Attempt, csa mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-05-24 00:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Johnny's had enough of life. Attempting suicide isn't anything new for him.





	1. Wear a Necklace of Rope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why yes i did get the idea for this title from the hunger games!! plus it fits rly well so ofc i to use it.

It wasn’t the first time that Johnny felt his life was no longer worth living. He’d tried to kill himself plenty of times before, but there was a sort of finality with this time. This time he’d written a note and put it in his pocket, making sure it was folded such that it would stick out, so someone would see it. He’d stolen one of his father’s belts and looked at the library how to make nooses. And he’d waited until his parents were out of the house and knew they weren’t going to be home for several hours. His house was silent. There was no reason for anyone to come and find him. He was ready to die.

He pulled a chair from the kitchen into the living room and tied the belt around the fan. It was the only place in the house that had a fan that he thought someone would see him in soon. If he did it in his room, he wouldn’t be found for hours. If he did it in his parents bedroom, who knew when he’d be found since his father always slept in his armchair and his mother hardly ever slept from all the drugs and alcohol she did all the time. If he hadn’t been certain his parents were going to be gone for a significant amount of time, he would’ve done it in his room.

He wanted to die. He didn’t want someone to find him.

He finished tying the belt to the fan and stared at the noose hanging in front of him. He swallowed hard, his fingers touching the note in his pocket. A part of him felt guilty for leaving the gang here alone, but they didn’t understand what it was like.

Johnny knew he was sensitive. He’d always been sensitive. And he knew now that that contributed to this, but it wasn’t the whole reason. The rest of the reason was his folks didn’t love him no matter what he did; everyone, excepting the gang and including the teachers at school, picked on him; and he hurt all the time. He woke up every morning and his chest hurt from the weight of it all. It made him want to scream until he couldn’t make anymore noise.

And the worst part was there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Since all authority figures in town were automatically against the greasers, anything Johnny tried to tell the police about his parents wouldn’t be taken seriously. That and most adults in this town didn’t see abuse as abuse, they saw it as kids getting what they deserved. Even if he told him about his father’s nightly visits and even if he got the rest of the gang to back him up, he knew he’d never be believed by the people who could do a thing about it.

So that was how he’d come to this conclusion. He’d lain on his bed, shaking and crying, staring at the wall after his father had left his room the night before and he’d decided as he lay frozen in bed until the sun’s first rays hit his bedroom walls what he had to do. Once he could move again, he’d cleaned himself up for the last time, wrote the note and then waited for his parents to leave the house before he went into their bedroom, grabbed one of his father’s belts, and then headed for the kitchen to grab the chair before heading into the living room.

He blinked, the noose going in and out of focus. A part of him didn’t want to do this. A part of him really wanted to live, but he knew if he lived he would only be in pain. He wouldn’t find happiness. And if he did, it was too far off for him to be willing to wait for it.

He put his head through the noose and took a breath.

* * *

Steve Randle walked down the street, heading towards his house from work. It hadn’t been an exactly long day at the garage, but it had been exhausting. He’d had to repair the same car five different times because his coworkers couldn’t figure out what was wrong the first two times and he kept fixing different parts of it, hoping that would solve the problem. Of course, it didn’t. And that was only one of four other cars that had been like that. He was beat.

He passed the vacant lot and didn’t see a fire in one of the oil drums. Johnny could still be over there, sleeping on the car seat in a way that Steve couldn’t see, but he didn’t think that’s where he was. Even as he thought it, anxiety wormed its way into him. It was rare for Johnny not to leave the house. Almost every day he was outside, unless he was sick. One of the gang’s collective fears was that one day Johnny’s father would hurt him so bad he wouldn’t be able to move. He would need help and he wouldn’t be able to get it. His parents wouldn’t help him and it wouldn’t be until it was too late that someone finally called an ambulance. By then he’d be dead and gone.

Steve bit his lip as he got to the corner and crossed the street to the corner Johnny’s house was on. He stopped at the foot of the stairs that led up to Johnny’s front porch and stared up at the dark house, his hands shoved into his pockets.

In the darkness, the trimming of the house made the whole rest of the house appear white as well. It was oddly silent. The silence just added to Steve’s anxieties. Normally, you could at least hear the TV going. Johnny’s father liked watching his TV loud. And if the TV wasn’t on, you could hear Johnny’s parents shouting at one another or at him.

Right now it was silent as the grave.

_As the grave._

That was enough of an implication for Steve to go up the front steps and knock on the door.

No one answered. He thought about knocking again, but his worries were getting the best of him and...maybe it was more than that too. He felt like something was wrong...really wrong. And he’d never felt that way before. He didn’t get anxiety. Feeling it now? It felt like a warning. It felt like something screaming in his brain to open the door _now_ before it was too late.

Not questioning the feeling, Steve pushed the door open, shocked to find it open and was met with a sight that immediately told him whatever sixth sense he’d had had been right.

Johnny was in front of him, standing on a chair with a noose around his neck, his eyes closed tight, his hands behind his back. When he heard the door, his eyes opened and he gasped. Then his face twisted and Steve could tell from the look in his eyes what he was going to do before he did it. He dove at the chair not knowing what he was going to do before he stepped up on the chair too and in one swift motion that he would later not know how he’d managed to do to begin with, he pulled his switchblade out of his back pocket and cut the belt. Johnny stepped into Steve in his attempt to step off the chair with the noose around his neck and then both went instead crashing to the ground.

Steve hit his head on the floor and black spots danced across his vision for a moment. When everything came back into focus, he saw Johnny in tears, tugging at the remainder of the belt around his neck. The kid had tied a good noose. Steve wondered where he’d even learned how and how much he’d practiced to get it right. The fact he’d even done that tugged at Steve’s heartstrings.

How was it that despite everything they did, Johnny still seemed to get the brunt of everything?

“Why’d you stop me?!” Johnny was half screaming as he continued to tug at the belt. “I wanted to die. I-I wrote a note and everythin’. I _wanted_ to die. Why do y’all _always stop me_?!”

Steve’s eyes flicked to Johnny’s pockets and he saw a piece of paper about to fall out of one of them. His gaze went back to Johnny’s face as he said, his voice quiet, “You _know_ why, Johnnycake. Without you, the whole gang would fall apart.” Steve moved forwards and began undoing the knot of the noose to get the belt off of Johnny’s neck. To his surprise, Johnny let him. His entire posture slumping as he just sat there and cried instead.

“Maybe the gang’s meant to fall apart then, if I keep gettin’ hurt bad enough to make me feel like this,” Johnny said, his voice a whisper. He wasn’t looking at Steve. His gaze was fixed on the ground, his eyes looked slightly glazed over as though he were trapped in his mind at the same time.

Steve paused what he was doing for just a moment to say, “That ain’t true, Johnnycake. I don’t believe that. You’ve just got bad people for your folks.”

But Johnny was already shaking his head. “But it ain’t just my folks, is it? It’s the Socs and the teachers and everyone in this town that ain’t a greaser, too.”

This time he did look at Steve and the look in his eyes made Steve flinch: it was pure anguish, pure hopelessness. Steve tried not to think about the kinds of things that would have to happen to a person to make them feel that way so completely.

Steve finally got the rest of the belt off of Johnny’s neck and he threw it across the room. It landed in a darkened corner and he was glad. He didn’t want to have to look at it again. Then he turned back to Johnny and said, “You got the gang, Johnny. We ain’t ever gonna treat you like those people don’t. Honest.”

Johnny gave a weak smile, but he didn’t say anything.

Even Steve had to agree that was a poor defense. The gang couldn’t even protect him from everything. They could only treat him better and, despite what they might tell themselves, they all knew it really wasn’t enough.

Steve reached over and took the note out of Johnny’s pocket. A part of him wanted to read it, but he knew that he’d start crying it he did and he didn’t want to scare the kid. Who knew? Maybe if he saw someone crying over how sad he was, he would think that was all the more reason to off himself. The worst part was Steve knew for certain that’d be his logic too.

Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his zippo lighter, the one his old man had given him for his birthday that year. Johnny looked up and saw what he was doing. His eyes widened and he swallowed, but he didn’t try to stop him. Steve was thankful for that. Still, he said, “I’m gonna burn this, okay? I don’t wanna have to worry about you doin’ somethin’ this stupid again. I’m always at my house or the garage or the Curtis place. You got people there for you, Johnny, okay? Say okay.”

“Okay,” Johnny said, his voice soft, but it wasn’t wooden or automatic and, as he struck the lighter and let the flame catch the corner of the paper, Steve wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. It meant that Johnny knew he had people, but he still felt this way. He didn’t want to admit what that meant: there was nothing they could do to fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’s going to be more parts to this!! i have them planned!! also i've never written for steve before, so i hope this went okay!!


	2. By the Side of the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny tries to die again. This time Dallas finds him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay another depressing part to add onto this story!! this isn't very long, but i wanted to upload SOMEthing for you guys to read. also pls listen to daniel in the den by bastille bc that is a johnny song.

The cars rushed by so fast that they blew Johnny’s hair and clothes every which way. There were very few busy roads in Tulsa, but the freeway on the other side of the train yard was always busy enough that there were several cars passing by at any given time. It was the main road buses went on too. And semi-trucks. And that was why Johnny was here.

He had lost count by now how many times he’d tried to end his life. He’d tried hanging himself, only Steve had stopped him and burned his suicide note. He’d tried stepping in front of a train, but Darry had stopped him then. And he’d tried jumping off the bridge that led out of town. Dallas had stopped him then. He’d never succeeded, but he was half hoping that by going so far out of the way, no one would find him and he’d finally be granted peace.

In his heart, he knew that the gang saved him because they loved him and because they truly believed that they couldn’t survive without him, but a part of him – a rather large part – felt their actions were selfish. He lived every day of his life in pain, wondering when more would come, wondering if it would ever end. The gang had their own struggles, he knew, but none of them had attempted to end their life. Not as far as he knew anyway. Either way, he wasn’t sure they quite understood how he felt. They didn’t understand death at this point would be a blessing for him.

The cars continued to rush past him, another large one making him stagger a couple steps to one side as the slipstream pulled his small, underweight body with it. His hands were stuffed into his pockets and he could feel the suicide note he’d written in one of them. He curled his fingers around it.

He looked both ways and saw a large semi coming.

It was big. Big enough to kill him the minute it hit him. It made him smile bitterly.

He stepped into the road.

The truck driver started honking the moment he stepped into the road, facing the truck, but Johnny clenched his hands into fists, preparing himself for the impact, for the moment of excruciating pain before he died. He closed his eyes tight, hearing the horn get louder and louder.

“I’m not scared!” he screamed at the semi, opening his eyes as the lights shined bright in his face. “C’mon! I’m not scared! I’m not scared! C’mon! I’m not scared!”

He took a shuddering breath in, his eyes going wide. The truck was feet from him. He could see the details of the grill in front. He could see the driver and all of the little knickknacks on his dashboard. He could see the fear in the driver’s eyes, but he was frozen to the spot now, unable to move even if he’d wanted to.

The horn so loud in his ears that he was sure he would go deaf before he died.

Then he felt a hand pull him to the side, away from the truck and he fell backwards onto the grass on the edge of the road, watching the semi roar past him as he did so, his eyes wide, his mouth open slightly. The slipstream pulled him to one side, his hair flying, his clothes rippling.

It took several moments after the semi had passed for him to register what had happened. His face twisted into a mask of anguish and his hands clenched into fists once more. He began beating the ground with his fists, watching them get stained green and brown from the grass and dirt beneath him. He wanted to scream until he couldn’t scream anymore. Yet again, death had been stolen from him.

“Hey kid, it’s okay,” a voice somewhere off to his right said. It took him a moment to recognize it as Two-Bit. “It’s okay. I ain’t gonna let you hurt alone.” He didn’t touch him and Johnny was grateful for that. He really wasn’t sure what he would do if he were touched.

“Why did you do that?” he gasped out around his sobs. “I don’t wanna live anymore.”

Two-Bit was silent for a moment and the only things that filled the silence were Johnny’s sobs and the cars rushing past them on the road only feet from them. Then he said, his voice sounding as miserable as Johnny felt, “I can’t let you die, Johnnycake. We all love you, kid. We couldn’t go on without you. I don’t think you get what would happen to us if you were gone.”

Johnny swiped at the tears falling down his cheeks, grimacing as he tried to keep his sobs in his chest. “I’m not important,” he replied. “Y’all would be fine without me.”

Through his tears, he could see the suicide note he’d written had fallen out of his pocket and was sitting on the grass between them. Two-Bit seemed to notice it at the same time he did and picked it up. He unfolded it and read it. Johnny didn’t look at him as he did, but he was silent for a while after he closed it, keeping it in his lap.

“You really think that?” Two-Bit asked finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. “That you’re worthless? And we’d be okay without you?”

Johnny stayed silent, not replying, still staring at the ground in front of him.

Two-Bit sighed. “You know that ain’t true, right? I ain’t kidding when I say we’d be lost without you, kid. You really are the glue that keeps us together.”

“But all I do is...is shit like this,” he finally said, his own voice just as quiet. “All I do is make y’all worry.” His eyes filled with tears again and his bottom lip trembled as he struggled to keep them from falling.

“But we don’t care,” Two-Bit replied without hesitation. “You’re the pet, the kid. We don’t care about worryin’ about you. That’s kinda our job.”

Johnny looked at Two-Bit then and Two-Bit gave him a sad half smile.

“C’mon,” Two-Bit said standing, holding his hand out to Johnny, ready to pull him to his feet. “Let’s go to Darry’s.”

Johnny pointed at the note still in Two-Bit’s hands as he helped him up. “What’re you gonna do with that?”

Two-Bit looked at the note for a minute and then began tearing it up and stuffing the pieces in his mouth, chewing each one for a moment before he spit them out onto the ground. “You don’t need this anymore,” he said.

Johnny gave his own small half smile. He wasn’t sure Two-Bit was right about that, but maybe he was right about it at this moment.

After that, Two-Bit slung his arm over Johnny’s shoulders and led him away from the road, back towards town, back towards the Curtis place. He still wanted to die, but he decided that maybe right now he was okay with continuing to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have two other parts planned for this fic, so look for those next!! i have soooo much to write and am still moving, so i appreciate y'alls patience <3
> 
> also yes, i did get that scene with johnny screaming he's not scared from skins.


	3. Well, It Hits Like An Avalanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Johnny's birthday, but he never planned to live this long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo….this is all based off of things that actually have happened and thoughts i’ve actually had. The title comes from the bring me the horizon song of the same name. seriously listen to it. it’s johnny’s song.

_Happy Birthday to me._

_Happy Birthday to me._

_Happy Birthday Johnny Cade, you worthless idiot._

_Happy Birthday to me._

 

This was what was going through Johnny’s head as he walked down the street, kicking rocks, his fingers curled around his switchblade in the pocket of his denim jacket. There were tear stains on his face from crying all through the night before and if anyone had pulled up his sleeves, they would’ve seen fresh scars covering them, so deep and red they looked like gills. His eyes were devoid of any sort of sparkle or sign of life. And there was a reason for that.

He was going to die today. He was done with living. He had tried many times before to kill himself, but this time he was determined to succeed. He hadn’t wanted to live this long in any scenario. He’d planned to be dead before he hit sixteen and yet here he was, on his sixteenth birthday, the year after his golden birthday, walking down the street, alive and healthy.

His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles around his knife going white as he grimaced and kicked a rock in the middle of the road as hard as he could.

He hated it.

He wanted to be dead. He wanted to be dying.

He wanted all of the pain and loneliness and fear to end.

He didn’t know where he was going. All he knew was that he was going to die. He was going to find somewhere remote, somewhere out of the way, slit his wrists with his newly sharpened knife, and let himself bleed out, while listening to the birds, feeling the breeze on his skin, and maybe for the first time in his life, he would feel at peace.

In truth that was all he wanted: to feel some measure of peace before he died.

 _But you won’t get it,_ a voice hissed in his ear. _You don’t deserve peace. You’ve never had peace. What the hell makes you think you’ll get it now?_

And he knew the voice was right. Nothing in his life had ever been peaceful. It’d only ever been violent. It’d only ever been full of blood and bruises, fear and pain. What the hell _did_ make him think that he would get anything different now. He was going to kill himself by slitting his wrists for god’s sake. How was that peaceful? Taking pills would’ve been more peaceful than that. Even if he did end up vomiting at some point before he passed out and was taken to whatever world awaited him after this one. Anything, he thought, had to be better than this. He couldn’t even imagine a hell that was worse than the life he’d lived. Even if they flayed him open every chance they got in that fiery pit.

But taking pills wasn’t an option. His parents didn’t use pills. They didn’t need to. They had alcohol instead. That was more than enough for them. And Johnny couldn’t even use the alcohol to take away his own pain. They’d beat him if he dared to try. And his father would do worse. Much worse. ( _Like he did last night,_ the voice in his head reminded him and he stopped walking for a moment as his eyes shut involuntarily and he shuddered, remembering the night before.) All he had was his knife. And now his knife would be what saved him too.

Because that was how he saw death at this point. It was a blessing. After everything he’d endured, after all the pain, misery and heartache, death was a blessing. But he knew no one else would see it that way, which was why he was headed to the treehouse. The only other person who knew about the treehouse was Dallas and by the time they noticed he was missing and by the time Dallas found him, he would already be dead.

He walked past the vacant lot, not even bothering to look at it as he passed. There were people there playing football, maybe they were calling to him, but he didn’t hear them. He didn’t want to. He wanted to get where he was going. But then he saw someone coming at him out of the corner of his eye and he turned towards them and froze.

It was the gang playing football in the vacant lot and he cursed internally, wishing he’d taken a different route, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get away now. They all knew him too well, better than any other group of people on the planet.

“Hey, Johnnycake! Happy birthday!” Dallas said, slowing as he reached him, he was grinning, but his grin vanished the minute he saw Johnny’s face. “Whoa, Johnny…” He bent down, trying to see Johnny’s face as Johnny looked at the ground. “You okay?”

Johnny cursed internally a second time, his dead, tired eyes flicking to Dally’s face. “I’m fine.” But he couldn’t even force a smile and he knew that Dallas didn’t believe him. His eyes flicked over Dally’s shoulder to the rest of the gang. They all looked similarly stunned. He looked away again. He didn’t know he looked that bad.

But he could tell Dallas didn’t believe him and nor did anyone else.

* * *

Dally knew something was wrong when he saw Johnny walking with a purpose past the lot without even looking to see who was there. He knew something was wrong when he didn’t immediately reply when he started calling his name. But up until he ran up to him and saw his face, he tried to pretend everything was okay, wanting to believe that on the kid’s birthday, he’d at least be happy. But his face told him a different story. The bruise-like circles beneath his eyes and his dark skin, more pale than dark now, revealing a sleepless night, the way he walked with a limp giving a suggestion as to what the night might have entailed.

Johnny looked sick. And as Dallas looked at him, he thought that maybe this was what Johnny felt like inside manifested on his features.

The thought alone made his heart squeeze in his chest.

However, it wasn’t until Johnny said he was fine that Dally truly knew that something was more than wrong. He’d heard that tone before. He knew what it meant and anxiety spiked in his chest. His eyes flicked to Johnny’s hands in his pockets, one of the pockets fuller than the other. He was holding his knife. He didn’t know what that meant for sure, but he could guess.

Trying to mask his own fear, Dallas swallowed hard and forced another smile. “Why don’t you come play with us?” he said loudly, wanting the rest of the gang in the lot to hear him. “We’re a man short on my team.”

“Oh, that’s okay, I don’t wanna –” Johnny began, but Dally wasn’t letting him leave alone.

“Okay, then how about we go back to the Curtis’s and have cake and you open your presents,” Dally said. He stepped up next to Johnny and draped his arms over his shoulders. Any other day, he would’ve let Johnny decide on his own, but that wasn’t happening today. He wasn’t letting him leave. He knew what would happen if he did.

“But, Dally, was just started playing,” Soda said, looking disappointed.

“No, we didn’t,” Dally went on, still speaking loudly and frowning at Soda as he spoke. “We’re bored of this game anyway and it’s cold out. We’ve been waiting for you to come by so we could go celebrate. Right guys?” None of this except for the last part and the part about it being cold was true and Dally normally didn’t lie to Johnny, but today was different. Today he didn’t care.

Everyone was silent for several moments, staring at Dally blankly. Then Darry’s eyes flicked to Johnny’s face and he must have seen what Dally did because a moment later he said, “Yeah, y’know what, you’re right. It’s too cold out to play ball today anyway. And if we don’t get back to my place soon, the cake is gonna go bad.”

Dally knew Johnny by now probably thought they were all being ridiculous, probably could tell they’d made everything up from the moment they saw him, but, uncharacteristically, Dally didn’t care. He knew what the other option was. He wasn’t going to let it happen. Not today. He’d lost enough.

* * *

Johnny knew from the moment Dally started talking that he was lying. And he also knew why. The entire gang could read him like a book, but Dallas seemed to be able to read him better than anyone, Darry being the second best and Ponyboy being the third. But all of the gang could read him. And the minute Darry joined in with Dally insisting they go back to the house, something changed in all of their expressions. Soda stopped pouting about leaving and threw the ball over his shoulder. Steve lit a cigarette to hide his shaking hands. And Ponyboy started talking about how excited he was to give Johnny his gift.

Which only made him feel worse.

He didn’t think they were lying about the gifts and the cake.

 _How could you do this to them now?_ The voice asked as Dally steered him towards the Curtis’s house with the arm over his shoulders.

 _Because they don’t understand,_ he insisted, watching the house come closer and closer, watching the steps as he walked up them and through the door. _They don’t go through this._

He knew that was an unfair assumption. For all he knew they did and just didn’t talk about it, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do what he was planning to do. He couldn’t fathom living another year, another _day_ in this much pain. The happy times weren’t worth it. The good parts of his life weren’t worth it. There was always that undercurrent of pain, fear, and unending loneliness.

 _You have no reason to feel lonely,_ the voice insisted right back as Dally sat him on the couch just inside the door. _You have all of these people, all of your friends, who love you._

 _But it ain’t the same,_ he reminded the voice. _It ain’t the same as having your folks love you._

The voice had no reply to that because it knew he was right.

The ironic thing was that, though he knew the whole gang now knew what he’d been planning to do – it had been written too plainly on his face – they all were not doing different things. Ponyboy and was helping Darry bake the cake that had supposedly already been made. Soda and Steve were playing cards at the table and Dallas was looking over their shoulders, helping both of them cheat. Maybe they all thought that as long as he was there where they could see him nothing would happen. And, he supposed, that much was true, but, as his eyes kept flicking to the bathroom, he realized just how easy it would be to close the door...and slip away.

So...he tried it.

He got up, even announcing to the room he was going to the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He turned on the faucet full blast and locked the door, hoping the running water would mask the click of the lock as it slid into place.

He let out a deep shuddering breath, closing his eyes as he did so and pulled his knife out of his pocket, flicking it open and rolling up the sleeve of his denim jacket in one fluid motion. There were so many marks on his arms already, the only clear space was two inches at the top of his wrist.

He watched the blade catch the bathroom light’s in its silver, mirroring the world around it.

He placed the blade on his skin, right above the bright blue vein he could see there.

He pulled the blade across it, pressing down as hard as he could.

He gasped at the pain and how quickly bright red blood welled up in the wake of the knife.

Then he put the blade on his other wrist and did the same thing.

Never before had he seen the blood run so quickly from his skin to the floor. Before too long, he’d staggered back against the wall and slid to the floor, a small pool of blood puddling around each wrist as he rested them each on the floor.

His eyelids fluttered and he looked towards the ceiling, the lights now looking like the light at the end of the tunnel. He couldn’t help smiling. Maybe he would finally, _finally_ get his wish. Maybe at last he would get to die.

* * *

Dally was enjoying himself, watching Steve and Soda play cards over their shoulders, grinning mischievously every time he loudly told the other one how they could beat him, then grinning all the wider when they actually took his advice.

The cake that Darry and Ponyboy were making already smelled good and they’d just barely put it into the oven before piling Johnny’s presents onto the kitchen table, right in the middle of what Soda and Steve were doing, which they, of course, protested.

It wasn’t until Ponyboy went to use the bathroom and came back, white as a sheet that anyone even knew something was wrong.

“Pony, what’s wrong?” Darry said from the kitchen where he was washing dishes.

Dally looked up from the card game, but he knew before Ponyboy said in flat voice, “Johnny ain’t comin’ out of the bathroom.”

For a moment, Dally was frozen, staring at Ponyboy in shock, wondering how he himself could’ve been so careless. Then it clicked in his mind what was happening and he started rushing towards the bathroom, pushing past Ponyboy as he said, over and over again, “No, no, no, no, no.”

He threw himself against the bathroom door, hoping it would break open, but it didn’t. He took several steps back and kicked it open, watching the lock break and the door splinter. Vaguely, he realized he’d have to pay Darry back later, but that was just details.

The minute the door flew open, he knew the worst had happened. He could see the pool of blood before he even stepped into the bathroom and saw Johnny, slumped against the wall, unconscious, looking even more pale than he had a moment ago.

Dally’s knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor. He let out a choked whimper and pulled Johnny’s limp body into his arms, screaming out in a hoarse, strangely high-pitched voice, “Help! Somebody help!” He pulled Johnny against him, the world blurring as tears filled his eyes – tears that he didn’t even bother to stop or swipe away.

Only one thought ran through his mind over and over again.

_My fault, my fault, my fault._

He didn’t even realize that the gang had rushed to the bathroom the moment he’d started screaming until Darry was in front of him, saying something he couldn’t quite understand, but eventually got the gist of: he wanted to check if Johnny had a pulse.

Dally almost stopped him, thinking illogically that if Darry couldn’t feel no pulse then Johnny wouldn’t be dead and everything would be fine, but when Darry pulled away, his own face going white as he realized Johnny _did_ have a pulse, he felt both relieved and more anxious at the same time.

How much longer did Johnny have?

How much longer until he _did_ slip away and it _was_ too late?

Later he would never know how much time passed between Ponyboy, his own eyes full of tears, speaking frantically to the 911 operator and the paramedics finally arriving, but it felt like way too long and way too short at the same time.

The paramedics had to pry Johnny out of Dally’s arms and hold him back from the ambulance as he tried to get in and go with them to the hospital. But Dally wasn’t family. Not biological family. And it didn’t matter how many times the gang explained they were the only family he really had. They didn’t count. They could only watch the ambulance drive off into the distance, all of them standing on the Curtis’s front lawn as they did so, their expressions all a mixture of blank shock and fear.

When the ambulance, its siren wailing, finally turned away and they couldn’t see or hear it anymore, Darry said, “C’mon. Let’s go to the hospital.”

No one said anything, they all piled into Darry’s truck, half of them sitting in the truck bed, all of them thinking the same thing, though they didn’t know it.

_If only we’d watched him better._

_If only we’d gotten into the bathroom a few minutes earlier._

_If only...if only...if only…_

Johnny would live. They all seemed to know that, but that didn’t change how they felt.

It never would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen………………….i know that johnny’s bday is not march 15th, but i’m also a vain motherfucker. also slightly based off of that one episode of skins where effy tries to kill herself.


	4. Survivor's Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dally feels guilty for Johnny trying to kill himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love an angsty ficlet and that is basically all this is fdhkalj i listened to monster by starset a lot while writing this

It took three days for the doctors to decide that Johnny was well enough to be released from the hospital. And then it took three more days for them to decide he was no longer suicidal enough for them to keep him in the juvenile psychiatric ward anymore. The gang visited him as often as they were able, but they had a hard time convincing the hospital staff to let them see him, since the only family he had truly didn’t care enough to visit him and, even if they did, they’d probably just make him feel worse than he already did. It wasn’t until Steve finally shouted at them and spilled the beans that his parents were abusive and probably the reason he’d tried to off himself to begin with that the doctors and nurses had finally stopped fighting with them and let them see him.

It had been two days since Johnny had been released from the hospital, and Darry had insisted that he stay at the Curtis’ house with the gang taking turns watching him around the clock. The doctors at the hospital may have decided he was no longer a threat to himself, but they all knew better. Ponyboy, Two-Bit, and Dallas watched him the most since none of them worked and they could take turns watching him all day and all night, Darry, Steve, and Sodapop did their fair share of watching as well when they had days off work or no plans on the weekends.

Johnny hated being watched constantly. Everyone could tell and everyone knew it. They watched him sleep, they watched him eat, they watched him when he went out for a smoke. They even stood outside the bathroom and made sure he wasn’t in there too long. The doctors may have cleared Johnny and told him he was no longer suicidal and could go home, but everyone knew that Johnny was a good liar when he needed to be and this was no exception.

It was a Saturday night and it was Dally’s turn to watch Johnny. He didn’t mind, even though everyone else – who wasn’t working – had gone to the drive-in. In his opinion, the drive-in wouldn’t be fun anyway if Johnny weren’t there. The only problem was Johnny was asleep right now, sound asleep on the couch, and that meant Dallas had plenty of time to think.

He hadn’t been sleeping well since Johnny’s suicide attempt. It had been over a week since it happened and he had nightmares every night. He kept seeing the moment he walked into the bathroom, all the blood on the floor, more blood than he thought should be inside the body of a boy as small as Johnny was. He’d been certain when he’d burst into that bathroom Johnny was dead. Even when Darry had found his pulse and called 911, he was certain it was a mistake and Johnny was dead because he lost everything he loved in his life and why would this be any different?

In his dreams, though, Johnny was never alive. And there was more blood than there really had been. It coated the bathroom floor like a blanket and Dallas always stained the soles of his feet and his hands as he walked into the bathroom, pulled Johnny into his lap, and let out an agonized scream when he realized Johnny was dead. Not long after that, he would wake up screaming too.

Dally’s eyes flicked over to Johnny, lying on his side on the couch, looking more peaceful in sleep than he ever did when awake. The TV was on on mute and the only illumination in the darkened living room. Dally had thought about turning on the light to play solitaire by himself on the floor until Johnny woke up, but he didn’t want to disturb him, so he didn’t do it.

But the trade off was the deep darkness of the room, of the shadows in the corners just made it easier for him to picture that night again.

He could still hear the way Ponyboy had sounded.

_Johnny ain’t comin’ out of the bathroom._

He could still hear the sound of his own voice as he’d run to the bathroom.

_No, no, no, no, no._

He could still hear the sound of the door creaking on its hinges when he’d flung it open.

He could still see the blood covering the floor.

He could still feel the way his entire body had been jarred by his knees buckling.

He could still feel the way Johnny’s wrists, slashed by his knife, had been sticky with blood when he’d wrapped his fingers around them, trying to stop the blood flow, trying to keep the precious crimson liquid keeping him alive inside him.

Dally didn’t really realize what he was doing, but he felt himself stand. Vaguely, he could feel his nails digging into his palms, so deep they might be drawing blood. But that only made him smirk. That was the idea, wasn’t it? To draw blood? His legs were taking him away from the living room, away from Johnny’s sleeping form and the silent TV to that awful bathroom.

When he flicked on the light, the first thing he did was look at the floor.

Darry, Ponyboy, and Sodapop – and everyone else too – had worked so hard to clean the floor, to get every speck of red out of the white linoleum, but, even now, staring at their hard work, there was a rust colored stain on the floor. He wanted to cover it with the shower rug, so he never had to look at it again, but that would look too suspicious.

Instead, Dally felt his knees buckle again, the door behind him still open. He pulled his switchblade out of his back pocket and rolled up his sleeve. He looked at the scars on his arms, the ones he’d already made himself. But there weren’t enough. He was going to fix that. Right now.

He placed the blade on his skin and pulled it to the side quickly, watching a line of red well up to the surface almost instantly. He did it again. And again. And again. He didn’t really count how many times he opened his skin, just to see the red beneath, but he did it until he stopped feeling the agony in his chest, until he stopped seeing Johnny’s limp body and the blood covering the floor, until the rust stain on the bathroom floor was only a stain and no longer a memory.

Relief flooded through him like a drug. His fingers around his knife went limp and he closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall, a smile of bliss on his lips. His arm ached dully. He held it on his thigh, letting the blood drip down the sides and soak into his jeans, staining them like the floor.

For the first time since Johnny had tried to kill himself, Dally felt at peace.

“Dallas?”

The small, hoarse voice made him jump and pulled him out of his thoughts in one fell swoop. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Johnny, standing in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, the other rubbing his eyes and blinking at the bright fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Dally could see the bandages, still wrapped around his stitched up wrists, poking out of the sleeves of his denim jacket.

“Hey, Johnnycake!” Dally said, far too brightly to be genuine. He quickly pulled down his sleeves and hid his knife. “You sleep okay?”

But from the look on Johnny’s face, he could tell he’d seen enough.

“Why were you doin’ that, Dal?” he asked, his voice still quiet, and this time also sad.

Dally swallowed hard. He wanted to lie to Johnny, wanted to tell him everything was fine and not to worry about him because that was the last thing Johnny needed right now, more worry. But he couldn’t lie to Johnny. He just didn’t have it in him like he did to lie to other people. He looked down, staring at his covered arm for a long time, not saying anything, thinking many things.

“It’s my fault that happened, Johnny,” he finally said quietly, the words surprising even him. “I knew how you were feelin’ from the moment I saw you that day and...I took my eyes off you for one minute, just one, despite knowin’ what was gonna happen and then it did happen if Ponyboy hadn’t found you at that exact moment….you wouldn’t be here anymore. And that’s on me.”

Johnny was silent for a long time and Dallas didn’t look at him. He just stared at his arm, watching the way the blood continued to drip down his arm, visible at the open cuffs. He was afraid to look at Johnny, afraid of the blame and anger he would see there – either for saving him or for not saving him soon enough. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Then he heard the medicine cabinet opening and he looked up, watching Johnny pull out gauze, antiseptic, band-aids, and a tube of Neosporin. Without saying a thing, he gathered the supplies up in his arms and spread it out on the ground in front of Dallas. He sat down next to it, tucking his legs under him and took Dally’s arm. He rolled up the sleeve and Dally watched as he winced, seeing the amount of scars on his arms.

Vaguely Dallas realized his arms looked like Johnny’s usually did.

Swallowing hard, Johnny picked up the antiseptic, pressed a rag to the opening and turned the bottle over. Then he held it over Dally’s arm and stared cleaning the cuts. Dally winced at the sting, automatically pulling his arm away, but Johnny held on with more strength than Dallas thought he had, continuing to clean the cuts as he did so. Once he was done with that, he started covering the band-aids in Neosporin before putting them over his cuts.

“Dallas,” he finally said quietly as he started wrapping it all in gauze. “It wasn’t your fault what I did, okay? I made the choice to do that by myself. I really don’t think you coulda stopped me. You don’t dictate what I do and don’t do. It ain’t your fault. It ain’t any of your fault. And...I wish y’all would stop blamin’ yourselves for somethin’ you had no control over.”

This time it was Dally who swallowed hard. He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Johnny he was wrong and that if he’d been smarter or quicker or checked on Johnny more then it never would’ve happened, but at the same time, he couldn’t come up with an argument that really definitively proved what Johnny had said was wrong, so he said nothing.

When Johnny finished wrapping his arm, he stood and held out his hand to Dallas. He had a small, sad smile on face, but it was more than he’d done in weeks. “C’mon,” he said quietly. “Let’s watch cartoons until everyone gets home.”

Dally took Johnny’s hand and let him lead him into the living room, let him sit him down, let him unmute the TV, and lay against his chest as he watched cartoons until he fell asleep again.

 _What would I do without you?_ Dallas thought, watching Johnny sleep on his chest.

But he knew what he would do without him.

He’d follow him. Wherever he went. Even into death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably going to be the last part in this ficlet unless i get a request or come up with another idea, so yeah!! bye for now on this one!!


	5. Running Through the Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang all does mushrooms together, but as usual nothing goes as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can’t remember who requested this, but i hope you like it!! this is kinda different than that ep of skins this was supposed to be based on, but that ep annoyed me for many reasons, so yeah
> 
> this will probably be the last chapter of this ficlet unless i come up with somethin' else

The gang rarely did drugs together. There were parts of them that did drugs together or did them alone, but they rarely did them altogether as a group. However, when Dally showed up at the Curtis’s house, late one afternoon, grinning, and holding a bag of mushrooms, they all decided that maybe it was time for them to try doing them together. Mushrooms weren’t exactly an easy drug to do alone. Mostly because it made people very sick at first and being sick alone wasn’t fun. So Darry asked for a day off, Steve and Soda did too, and everyone else planned to spend the night at the Curtis house after they did the mushrooms in the woods. Darry even agreed to allow Ponyboy to stay home from school the next day, so he could do the drug with them, which surprised everyone involved.

The woods by their neighborhood seemed like a great place to do the drugs. No one went in there at night, all of them afraid that someone would jump out from between the trees and murder them. It was far enough away that if they were a little loud, no one would call the cops on them either. Not that anyone would call the cops in that neighborhood anyway. Loud noises at night were part of life there and a few boys being rowdy in the woods wouldn’t be anything unusual or cause for concern.

They met up at the Curtis’s house the night they planned to do it and all tromped into the woods, grinning and yelling and cursing, causing general mayhem. Johnny walked near the back of the group. He was quiet, his hands stuck into his pockets, but he grinned just as widely as everyone else as he watched them whoop and holler as they started down the trail that led into the woods. Dallas walked next to him, calling and cursing with everyone else, but not bouncing around the way Soda, Steve, Ponyboy, and Darry did. He always watched over Johnny, no matter the situation.

Once they felt they were far enough into the woods, the first thing they did was make a circle with large stones they could find around them – Darry had brought a flashlight so they could see in the dark – and then make a pyramid out of logs to build a fire for light and for warmth. It was the end of September and it was starting to get quite cold at night. Darry and Ponyboy lit the fire with a matchbook and the Zippo lighter that had once belonged to their father. After several false starts, they finally had a big enough fire going they’d be warm and have enough light to see by for the night.

Finally, Dallas pulled the ziplock baggie of shrooms out of the pocket of his bomber jacket and gave some out to everyone, telling them at the same time they had to chew it as much as they could and wait as long as possible before they threw up to get the full effect.

That was the one downside to mushrooms. The throwing up. And it wasn’t pleasant for anyone.

Johnny shuddered as he vomited what felt like everything he’d ever eaten in his life, thankful he’d barely eaten anything that day, so it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it might have otherwise been. He didn’t even realize Dallas was kneeling next to him, rubbing his back, saying things to him he couldn’t even understand over the nausea still coursing through him, until he finally straightened, his legs shaking and leaned against the tree he’d thrown up next to for support.

But when he did, everything around him changed.

The colors were brighter, the stars seemed to turn into liquid gold above him and he grinned at Dallas who grinned back, knowing exactly what was happening to him in that moment. He looked out across the clearing at the other members of the gang, all of them whooping and hollering as much as they had been on their way there, running in circles around the bonfire. Soda was doing cartwheels, Pony was staring at the sky too with a big smile, and Darry and Steve were wrestling like their lives depended on it, Two-Bit egging them both on.

“You okay?” Dallas asked and Johnny heard him as though through a long tunnel.

He looked up at him, blinking for several seconds as he tried to take in what he’d said, then he grinned again and nodded saying, “Yeah, I’m okay, thanks, Dal.”

And he was okay. He was having a blast.

But something inside him told him that wouldn’t last and that something must have been able to see the future because it was right. Too right. As it always seemed to be.

It started out small.

Whispers that came from his left or right.

Whispers that sounded like people he knew.

Bad people.

People who’d hurt him.

And then he started seeing them.

The gang morphed from Ponyboy to the Soc who’d jumped and assaulted him multiple times, from Darry into his father, from Soda into his mother. Dally and Two-Bit turned into his father’s friends. All of them leering at him, closing in on him, wanting to hurt him again.

Johnny pressed himself up against the tree, his eyes wide, his skin as pale white as the moon above them. He was shaking badly, unable to speak, unable to do anything. He felt frozen, glued to the tree like someone had covered his body with super glue and stuck him there, a sacrificial lamb, an offering to the demons coming towards him, all wanting a piece of him, all wanting to hurt him again, hurt him more than they ever had before. He heard a high keening, some sort of hellish scream and realized distantly it was coming from his own mouth.

 _There’s only one way to end it,_ said a voice and Johnny wasn’t sure if it came from one of the specters surrounding him or his own mind. _Use the knife. End it all. All of the pain. Not just the pain of now, but the pain of every moment you’ve lived._

His eyes flicked to his switchblade, sticking out of his pocket and all at once he knew the voice was right. His life _was_ nothing but pain. Even now when he was supposed to be out with his friends having fun, he was trapped, lost in memories, lost in pain, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Except this.

He pulled his knife out quick as a flash, flicking it open and holding it to his throat.

“Don’t come any closer!” he screamed, his voice hysterical. “I’ll do it! I’ll fuckin’ do it! Then you won’t have your toy anymore, huh?! You won’t have anythin’ to hurt and destroy anymore! You wouldn’t want that would you?!”

He was sobbing as he said it, tears running down his cheeks, his hand shaking, cutting his neck already without meaning to. He could feel warm blood drip slowly down his neck and he collapsed to his knees, sobbing harder, shaking violently.

Without warning, he felt hands on him and he screamed, about ready to plunge the blade into his neck before he felt hands wresting it from his grip. His eyes flicked upwards and he saw the specter of his father, pulling the knife from his grip, a leer on his face. Johnny lashed out, trying to hurt the specter, trying to make it disappear, but it only tightened its hold on his knife.

“Johnny!” he heard a voice shriek, almost as hysterical as his own, a voice that sounded nothing like his father and yet was coming from that specter in front of him. “Johnny, let go! It’s me!”

But he didn’t know who me was and he let the knife go only so he could get away, pressing himself up against the tree again, curling in on himself, pulling his legs up against his chest, wrapping his arms around them and rocking back and forth, gasping for air, barely able to breathe from how terrified he was, how much he was hyperventilating.

And then he heard another voice, this one coming from far away, from that tunnel, and, to his surprise, it sounded scared and yet, somehow, at the same time, calm.

“Johnny,” the voice said, the specter of one of his father’s friends kneeling in front of him, gently taking his hands. He tried to pull away as it kissed the tips of his fingers, letting out a whimpering moan as he did so. “Johnny,” it said again. “Come back. Come back to me. Come find me. I know you can find me. You just have to find me.”

Johnny blinked and slowly, slowly the specter before him warped again, changed back into Dallas and he took a shuddering breath as he recognized him. His own face twisted and he slumped against Dally, sobbing harder than before as he realized what had happened.

Dally’s arms went around him, holding him against him, shushing him, soothing him. He felt his hands in his hair, rubbing his back, telling him, “It’s okay, Johnnycake. I got you. It’s okay. I got you. I shoulda known this wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m so sorry, man.”

Vaguely, Johnny realized he could hear tears in Dally’s voice and he wondered what on earth could have gotten Dallas Winston so upset he wanted to cry.

“We never should’ve done this with him,” he heard the other voice, the voice that had been hysterical moments earlier, say. He recognized it this time as Darry’s voice. “It ain’t just your fault, Dal. We all shoulda known it was a bad idea.”

No one replied.

They all agreed.

“You wanna take him back to my place?” Darry asked. “I can give you the keys.”

Dally didn’t reply, but he must’ve nodded because a moment later he was sweeping Johnny up into his arms, carrying him out of the woods, away from the fire, back into darkness. But the darkness didn’t last long. Moments later there was light, artificial light, shining down on them again as they reentered the neighborhood and headed down the street towards the Curtis’s house.

“I’m so sorry,” Dally kept saying over and over again as they walked. “I’m so sorry, Johnnycake. I shoulda known better than to give you drugs like that.”

Johnny said nothing. He wasn’t sure if there was anything he could say. He didn’t blame Dallas. He never would. But he did blame himself for being so weak. He couldn’t handle anything. And as they walked up the steps of the Curtis’s front stoop, he cried even harder because he knew then as he’d never known anything before that he would never be normal. Not ever.

And there was nothing anyone could do to change that. Not even himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this also was not supposed to take this long to come out, but i moved yet again from utah to washington, so i didn’t even have internet to post it until today
> 
> also before you ask yes i have done mushrooms, so this is all accurate!!
> 
> pls comment if you read!! comments are what keep me goin' <3


End file.
